^<^^ .. 



.0 "*. 







!•" 



f. 



- J" ^: 

p, • . P * .. 






>^^-^'. 






A- * 
<^ * o M o 



■V 



r> * 




\> » • " 



l^f^i^ ^ 




FREEDOM FOR MISSOURI. 



L E 1^ T E R 



B. a R A. T Z B R O A^^ ]sr . 



"WEEKLY NEW ERA." PUBLISHED AT ST. JOSEPH, MO. 



St. Louis, April 12tli, 1862. 
Sir : . I rejoice to liave received from you the first number of 
the Weskly New Era, a journal devoted to the cause of eman- 
cipation in this State ; and truly when from the chief city of the 
" Platte Purchase " — that early and unfortunate concession to 
slavery, there comes so emphatic a voice demanding to be restored 
as free soil — it may well be announced as a New Era. It is an era, 
too, that promises speedy realization to the hopes of many thou- 
sands of brave men who have toiled through the dark days of intoler- 
ance and persecution in our midst, firm in the faith that time would yet 
show forth Missouri with freedom blazoned on her front, and sure 
that they could leave no brighter heritage to their sons than the 
esteem of having done a sincere work in converting a slave State 
into a free commonwealth. 

With those, and they are many who calculate only the 
material elements of prosperity, it can no longer be a matter 
of question that Missouri would be more populous, twice as 
enterprising, and wealthier by a hundred fold, without slavery 
than with it. At last, thinking men are all of one mind on that 
point. It is only those who are interested in slaves as property, and 
those who cling to the institution from passion, refusing to see any 
escape from its inherited evils, who now resist the progress of eman- 
cipation. The first class — the slave holding class--doesnotnumber ten 



m. 



^ >. v^>. ^ » HtUN^i^ \ 



2 ' ^ -' 

thousand men ; the latter is more numerous and less open to the 
reception of new ideas. To both, however, there is approuchiiig a 
solution that will force them to consider this question in another 
light than that in which they have chosen exclusively to regard it. 

^Thc complications in which the finances of our State have become 
involved, are of so embarrasing a nature, that a repudiation of the 
public debt stares us in the face. We have got the question of State 
bankruptcy- to grapple with and cast off if we may, and very clear 
it is that none other than some great measure of relief, that will 
rapidly repeople our deserted fields, introduce thrift where sloth has 
heretofore prevailed, and stimulate investment able to meet the 
demands of a stringent taxation for some years to come, can save this 
State from such a disgrace. But thei'e is one and only one measure 
of relief holding out any such prospect. If within eighteen months 
time Missouri does not stand accredited in the eye of the world as 
putting forth her will to abolish slavery, not a bond of hers will find 
a quotation at any stock board ; her treasury will be discredited 
beyond hope, and her soil regarded, both in Europe and America, as a 
location to be avoided by all who rely upon their own industry- 
That I do not say this without a warrant, let me show "by some 
specifications not without interest at this moment. 

From the Auditor's Eeport of 1861 it will be gathered, that the 
bonded debt of the State of Missouri amounted at the close of that 
fiscal year to ^23,903,000. If we include the unpaid interest of 
July and January last and that falling due in July next, which is 
unprovided for, amounting together to 82,160,000, and the war scrip 
authorised by tho Conventicr;, which is estimated at §800,000, we 
shall have in round numbers the sum of 127,000,000, for which the 
State is now liable, and the annual interest on which, $1,620,000, has 
to be provided for by taxation. The total fiiilure of the several rail- 
road companies to meet the interest on the bonds loaned to them, 
and the improbability of their being able to do so for years to come, 
make it necessary that the entire interest on the bonded debt shall 
bo assumed by the State. In addition to this, the amount estimated 
by the Auditor for the ordinary annual expense of the State Govern- 
ment and for the support of Public Schools is $570,000. The cost of 
temporary loans, special appropriations, and incidental matters not 
estimated for, may be safely set down at $60,000 more. Thus we 
have to start with an annual budget of $2,250,000, and that too 
without any allowance for the military establishment which will 



l^r^- ^ 



have to be maintained, in part at least, whenever the United States 
shall cease to audit the pay roll of our State forces. To meet this 
outlay, what resources have we? The Auditor, in his report already 
referred to, estimated the ^receipts into the treasury from all 
ordinarj^ revenue*sources for the two fiscal years ending September 
30th, 18G2, at one million seven hundred and sixty thousand dollars — 
or about $900,000 a year. But this Avas predicated upon the receipts 
of the preceding year, when values Avere inflated and the scourge of 
war had not swept over Missouri. At the present time it would be 
reduced in assessment at least one third, Avhilst the waste and 
poverty in some portions of the State may make collecting there of 
any taxes at all very problematical. Indeed it may be questioned 
whether, if the existing status be continued, a revenue of more 
than $500,000 per annum, can be relied onto meet this liability of 
$2,250,000 a year. 

Is it not very apparent then, that upon this financial exhibit it will 
require something more than ordinary pro-slavery legislation to 
avert the calamity of bankruptcy from attaching to Missouri ? 
Equail}" clear is it also, that before any change for the better or hope 
of extrication can be had, there will have to be first given some 
guarantee for the future — a guarantee both against rebellion and in 
favor of labor interests, a guarantee that shall invite capital and 
people, and civilization to this State, and thus establish a sure 
groundwork for paying our debts hereafter. 

I need scarcely repeat that in ray opinion there is no guarantee 
that will be accepted by the world abroad in this respect except the 
abolishing or initiating the abolition of slavery. Whatever we may 
think on the subject, those communities and countries to which we 
must look for immigration, capital and credit, do so regard it, and 
that is conclusive. Abolish slavery, and the emban-assments of the 
financial crisis may be tided over in view of the broad foundation 
thereby laid for future solvency; but on the other hand, refuse to do 
so, or even do nothing, and I can see no other fate than repudiation 
in store for Missouri. 

It is true, and no doubt the proposition will be acted upon, that 
this vast burden of debt, and its corresponding heavy annual 
interest, can be much diminished and brought within a more man- 
ageeble limit, by a sale of all the railroads to which State credit has 
been loaned, receiving bonds in payment therefor. But it must also 
be remembered, that the same guarantee for the future, that is 



necessary to restore otir revenue, is even still more indispensable to 
effect such a sale as that suggested, and induce the investment of 
millions of capital in railroad enterprise. Such a sale would be an 
absolute sacrifice and aiford no relief to the public debt, from a want 
of competition among bidders, if no other security for a profitable 
venture were held out, than our past pro-slavery record, of proscrip- 
tion, rebellion, and bankruptcy. 

It is a common and perhaps the most formidable assertion made 
by those who oppose emancipation, that its cost will be far beyond 
the ability of this generation to bear. The more thoughtless or 
malicious do not hesitate to put down the sum at fifty millions of 
dollars. They say that the State Constitution requires compensation 
to be first made to slaveholders before any act of emancipation can 
take effect, that the mode of revising or amending the Constitution 
in this respect is so tedious and tortuous as to bi) virtually imprac- 
ticable, and thence assuming compensation must be made, they 
frighten off timid men by exaggerating the total amount.. Of one 
thinfr all may be sure, that whenever this objection is adduced, no 
matter what cloak or party name the utterers wears, he is wedded 
in Ms heart to the slave system. But plausible as the argument is 
sometimes made to appear, it is unsound in deduction and wholly 
false in apphcation. The thing— the practical deed — slavery ex- 
tinction, can be accomplished in Missouri in defiance of the bold 
attempt that has been made by early lawgivers to tie the hands of 
all after generations, and that at almost a nominal cost to the people 
of this State. It can be done without infringing a line of the Con- 
stitution, and without the cost of five millions — far less fifty millions 
of dollars. And foremost in the discussion of this subject in its 
pecuniary bearings, let the fact be borne in mind, that the institution 
of slavery in the hands of its few proprietors, rests as a blight upon 
the industry and property of nine hundred and fifty odd thousand 
non-slaveholders, and it is a matter of vital self-defence, on their part 
that the speediest methods should be used to initiate its extinction. 
They have the right to use all moral and political appliances to 
relieve their own industry and their own property from the incubus, 
and the duty they owe to posterity demands that they exercise that 
right. It only needs then, that the non-slaveholding people of this 
commonwealth shall take into their own hands its ordinary govern- 
ment and say, no longer shall it be administered in the interest of 
slavery, but rather in sympathy with freedom, and they will' have 



accomplished in a great part the desired result. None know better 
than the advocates of the slave system, how entire is its depend- 
ence for vitality upon the public opinion of the community wliere it 
exists.. And none feel more keenly the first breath of moral con- 
demnation that comes from the governing class. I affirm, therefore, 
that it is only necessary to give body and form to the public will of 
Missouri — to utter the deliberate verdict of our great State against 
the longer continuance of slavery within its confines, and the hours 
will be few that it will linger in the land. In proof of this position I cite 
the fact, that within the last two years, in the presence of the bare 
discussion of the subject of emancipation, in view of the uncertain 
tenure of that species of property, and consequent upon a troubled 
and conflicting state of society, the number of slaves in Missouri has 
been reduced one half. And this has not cost the State Treasury a 
single dollar of outlay. But if the half, why not two-thirds — 
why not the whole ? The process is the same. The mere 
suspicion that there was freedom on the air, made this no longer 
a congenial home for slave labor. Let the question then of 
emancipation be agitated freely. Trie non slaveholding community 
owes thus much to itself. Let its merits be brought to light in 
every town and county. Let its influence be shown upon industrial 
wealth, social elevation, public prosperity, manners, morals, religion, 
patriotism, in short upon whatsoever slavery has blighted. Let the 
Landed learn they would be richer, and double the yearly gain from 
their cultivated farms if they would liberate their slaves forthwith 
and emploj free labor instead. Let the Landless know what it is that 
deprives them of homesteads and holds it degradation to woi'k. 
Let none remain who, either from fear, or ignorance, or remoteness, 
are not familiar with every vulnerable point in the slave system- 
And in the broad light of such discussion there need be no doubt but 
that the end will come quickl}^ 

Like all other great reforms that spring from the popular heart, 
this too must depend in a great measure upon incessant agitation. 
I do not hesitate to confess myself an "agitator" in this behalf, and 
an agitator I intend to continue — if life be spared me, until Missouri 
takes her stand amid the free States of the Great West, And it mat- 
ters really very litt'e through what process of balloting, or demon- 
strating, or census taking, the determination of the people of Missouri 
to have done with slavery and j^ut it out from amongst them, shall be 
made manifest — only so that it be made manifest, so that it be seen and 



felt :ind known by all, that such is ihe verdict; and even, though in 
the mysterious pi'ovidence of God, the iusincerest of political trim- 
mers be used to signal the fact, the end will have been accomplished 
just as well. When that is shown, the number of slaves that will 
become the subject of the constitutional clause authorising emancipa- 
tion will be few indeed. Turn against slavery, for its overthrow, the 
same weapons that have been used so successfully to build it up — the 
appliances of public sentiment and the bearings of ordinary leg 
islation. Slaveholders finding it no longer reputable, as it has never 
been profitable, to maintain buch a system, will themselves seek for 
a deliverance from its depressing influence. Many will be glad to 
obey those impulses of humanity of which they so often speak, and 
liberate their slaves by individual action. Others may pei-haps re- 
move with them to places where the institution still obtains, while a 
few wiU clamor for the full jjrice, from G-overnment, of chattels that 
have ceased to be of any value as such. It has been thus in Pennsyl- 
vania, inJST.York, in everyState that has accomplished the extinction of 
slavery, and the process that has been so effectual there, is the truest 
method for application here. When the vestiges of the institution 
shall come to be cleared away by statutes of freedom, I have no doubt 
that liberality to slaveholders will be the order of the day; but 
in the meanwhile, and first of all, it is our duty to strike down that 
fictitious public opinion — that manufactured morality— and that false 
worship of its power, which has given value and permanence to 
slavery in the past, and without which it cannot endure for an hour 
in the future. Do this, and the idol will tumble from its pedestal, 
exposing the jugglery by which it has been so long palmed off on 
human credulity, as of divine origin. 

Believing, as I do, that the more thoroughly this subject of emanci- 
pation is discussed, the more visible will become its practicability, and 
the swifter its progress from the very fixct of agitation, it will not 
be amiss if I enter my total dissent from so much of that programme, 
set forth in the New Era, as makes the expatriation of the blacks a 
condition precedent to their emancipation. As a matter of rigid justice 
I know of no right to enforce so extreme a penalty when proposing 
to cancel a great public evil. And as a caprice of mere state craft, I 
cannot but think that the proposed removal, if insisted on and its 
adoption made preliminary to all other action, will do more to retard 
and embarass the cause of emancipation than any action its enemies 
could take. It would involve an outlay fiir beyond the means of our 



State, and it is idle to expect pecuniary aid from the U. S. Govern- 
ment in that behalf, for, if compulsory, the Federal power will never 
co-operate in such a scheme, however willing to aid emancipation in 
itself or migration when voluntary. Indeed, if a proper policy be 
pursued inreUeving this .State from the reproach and ruin of slavery, 
the change of condition will be sufficiently gradual to avoid those 
dangers appredended by some, were an immediate universal liberation 
of the blacks to take place. Moreover, action and reaction should 
be equal, and if so many, manj- thousands of us have thus far 
borne with their presence as slaves, surely others can endure their 
abiding as freemen for the term that may fit them for the duties of a 
new life. To a voluntary colonization, impelled by motives such as 
brought the Pilgrims to these shores, no objection could be made ; 
on the contrary, it would receive support and assistance in many unex- 
pected quarters ; but the argument that assumes all slaves unfit to 
dwell here when liberated — that enforces expatriation before freedom, 
is essentially a pro-slavery argument. It calls in question the propriety 
as well as the right of emancipation at all, whether by individual or 
State, and draws its chief strength from alleged thriftlessness, immor- 
tality and tendency to merge with the white race — allegations utter, 
ly at variance with well known facts. Where is the evidence of 
such proneness to vice and crime on their part ? Your penitentiaries 
and prisons show few freed blacks in them, and those chiefly for of- 
fences against the slave code ; whilst the aversion in which intermar- 
riage between the races is held — is sufiicient evidence of its rarity 
and sufficient guarantee against its prevalence. Nor are their num. 
bers such as should frighten us into harsh dealings. I find in a late 
authority that there were, in 1861, more than eighty-three thousand 
freed blacks in the State of Maryland. Yirginia contained fifty-seven 
thousand five hundred, Penns3^1vania, fifty six thousand and upAvards, 
and New York about fortj^-nine or fifty thousand. In Missouri at the 
present tin?e there are not more than fifty thousand blacks, both free 
and slave, but Missouri is twice as large as Maryland, and fully equal 
in extent, resource and capacity for the support of population to either 
of the States named. Furthermore, it is a fact, susceptible of the 
clearest proof, that in not one of those States have the predictions, 
so lightly uttered in regard to the free blacks, befallen them as a 
class. Add to this the presumption whic i all things conspire to jus- 
tify, that upon the consummation of any act of freedom in this State, 
so fjxr from having fil'ty thousand slaves to liberate, there would, in all 



human probabilit}'', exclusive of the j^ost nati, be less than twenty 
thousand, and 1 think Ave may dismiss any apprehension as to injury 
resulting, or likely to result from the stay of such as remain, and that 
we need not load the question of emancipation with conditions pre- 
cedent only calculated to embarrass its achievement. 

But after all, there is a higher ground from which we should view 
such questions. Let us be solicitous chiefly of doing the Eight in this 
irravc matter of liberatino; a down trodden race, and trust that God 
will so order all its consequences, that they shall redound in benefits 
likewise. 

This communication has already drawn itself out to gi-eater length 
than I intended, ajid I must defer, therefore, to some other occasion, a 
discussion of those measures most suitable at this time for organizing 
apart}' of freedom — for establishing societies of support and correspon- 
dence in every district, aud for disseminating information needful to 
the full comprehension of the merits of this question by the masses 
of the people. There is much work to be done, and only those who 
give to it a willing heart will accomplish anything. Above all, let us 
not, in initiating this great campaign, make the mistake of shallow 
politicians, who, by ignoring moral influences as determining the af- 
fairs of men, so often fail to realize their confident anticipation. On 
the contrarj'-, we must comprehend, and teach others to know, that 
such impulses are mightier than any of the appliances commonly re- 
lied on to give shape to government. It is a moral force — aye, almost 
exclusively a moral force, that is upholding with such signal success, 
our Federal Executive in this the hour of its trial, supplying inumer. 
able armies, and admirable captains to crush out the most daring, 
the most adroitly planned, not less than the most wicked rebellion 
that ever threatened any republic with overthrow. And shall we 
lose faith in the same power when enlisted in the same cognate cause 
of freedom, even though resistance and obstacles present themselves in 
a diff'crent guise ? No ! rather let it nerve us to the performance of 
our civil duties with increased ardor and utter fearlessness in the pre- 
sence of so much heroism everywhere uprising around us. 
Respectfully, yours, 

B. GEATZ BEOWN. 














<p._ * o « o 



^'\.. ^»' 











■■J- 



1T?Z^ 



0^ .ci^„*% "^-. 




^O ^P^ -©NO 







•'w^ 

./'-. 






'< o\ 



%.<•* .\%1 










^0^ 



m 



V\1RT 
? Ill 800<BiND<Nj<: 

^>* W '^'■^ri'Mlle Pa 

'^ Jan Cec :9Sf 



